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| Retirement communities
guide
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Retirement Communities – A Perspective
Retirement properties, large retirement communities, retirement communities
definition
If you are healthy and you age then there will be no problem. The trouble
starts only when you begin to lose your health as you age. Sometimes these
difficulties are self-inflicted.
While it is natural for anyone to want to stay in their homes as they
grow older many of us do not plan for it and do it in the wrong way especially
if you are going to stay alone in the house with no one to look after
your needs.
This isolation coupled with lack of proper physical activity, poor eating
habits and frequent falls contribute to the problems that the elderly
face who grow old in their homes. As a result they meet premature disability.
And that is the reason why thought has to given to retirement communities.
Many old people have been led to believe that residence in a retirement
community is like living in a prison. Though it does involve moving away
from home it is not to a dungeon.
Retirement homes are now designed with every possible convenience and
hospitality in mind. You will find that most retirement communities are
managed by people from the hotel industry. On offer are private apartments
and small homes with a range of facilities and prices that can just about
suit any individual. There are also available studios, one or two bedroom
independent units complete with baths and kitchens designed for the elderly
with mobility problems. The services range form daily to weekly housekeeping,
laundry, van service to shops, recreational activities and regular visits
by doctors and chaplains. The options are wide and various.
But that is not the reason that you can like a retirement community. They
can be a home for a home with a little bit more care thrown in. Though
it may lack the sentimental attachment to your own home; the activities
with the other residents of the community and the staff keeps one from
feeling lonely and isolated. Recreational and exercise programs keep the
muscles from getting atrophied. Bathrooms are designed to prevent slippage
and falls. And any kind of help is just a button away, 24 hours a day.
Another reason to stay in a retirement community is that they provide
at least one meal every day in a common dining room. This is a very important
factor in the life of an elderly person. Preparing a meal requires regular
drives to stores and groceries for the purchase of provisions etc., storing
it, cleaning and cooing it, eating it and the tedious cleaning that follows.
For a person in a retirement community, these labor-intensive activities
are greatly reduced. Not only that, when an elderly person lives alone
in his own home, he or she tends to forget and slowly drifts into having
untimely meals a consequently to having undernourished food. These drawbacks
can be avoided in a nursing community where there will be trained and
caring staff to provide the elderly with timely and food specific to their
individual needs. The fact that you mingle with other elderly people,
talk to them and share their company keeps the residents active and alert.
This is the main factor to prefer a nursing community to a lonely life
at your own home.
Since retirement communities differ significantly in size, style, location
price and ambience it is essential that you get to know and understand
all the facilities available in a particular community and see if it suits
your needs to a “T”. Basically there are three types of retirement communities.
The most common kind of retirement community operates on a monthly basis,
that is, you stay in a particular facility and then move on to another
as your needs change. How you are accommodated and your accommodation
changed differs from community to community. As the need arises, some
offer additional in-house services such s help in bathing or medications,
others might you to shift to a different part of the institution where
a higher level of care is provided.
The next type is called the “Continuing Care Retirement Community”. Here
a range of care is provided – from independent to an all encompassing
care. All that is required is that you are healthy when you move in and
as your needs increase, you are moved into different accommodations where
the required care is provided. But you still remain in contact with your
spouse, relatives and friends.
Continuing Care Retirement Communities can be pretty expensive requiring
an advance payment plus a monthly fee. Mostly you will never have to move
again. Full fledged Continuing Care Retirement Communities look after
you till you pass away. Most of these communities are operated by religious
groups but now some for-profit institutions are entering the market because
of the increasing demand.
The third kind is largely of the subsidized kind, subsidized usually by
the Government, Federal or State. These are largely similar to the first
kind, that is, you stay as long as the institution can meet your needs
and then you have to move on. Though more Spartan in the services offered,
they are adequate and cost far less than the private communities. This
can be a significant factor for those people with modest financial resources.
Sadly, the number of such subsidized retirement communities are few and
the Federal Government stopped establishing them in the 60s. While low
income housing for the elderly are continuing to be constructed, they
lack the facilities of a good retirement community especially in the area
of common dining and other community activities. Some thing drastically
short-sighted.
This leaves the retired person two choices. There are a variety of public
and private non-profit institutions that build and run housing for the
elderly, specially for those with a moderate or low income. Comprising
mainly of individual apartments, they do not provide meals in common dining
rooms and other facilities found in retirement communities. But they do
offer a sense of security and opportunities for leading an active and
social life.
Some of the housing developers offer some of their apartments at an discount
for people of low or modest income in exchange for using bond financing.
The Internet is teeming with websites that offer information on these
retirement communities; public, profit and non-profit private, Federal
and religious and others. When, where and which retirement community you
go to depends on the individuals or his family’s choice which in turn
is dictated by the available finances and the supplemental care that family
and friends can give to the retired person.
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